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Abstract

Iwork at Cameron University, a regional institution in Oklahoma that will be celebrating its centennial in 2008. Our administrators see the revivification of the Cameron University Honors Program as an important component of their “Centennial Plan,” and they have appointed me to make that revivification happen.

I benefited greatly from reviewing Dean Sederberg’s observations concerning the South Carolina Honors College. Initially, I suspected that his insights would be primarily useful for those in charge of far more developed programs than the one I have been tasked with directing, but from the moment I encountered his warning against “‘biggering’ for the sake of ‘biggering,’” I realized that I could count myself as a member of his implied audience.

As I hope to have indicated with my title, my purpose here is partly to engage, amplify, and comment on some of Sederberg’s points in “Nothing Fails Like Success: Managing Growth in a Highly Developed Honors Program.” However, the fact that my program includes fewer than 100 students (whereas Sederberg oversaw the growth of the SCHC from 700+ to 1200+ students) suggests that I might be looking at some of the points in his article through the wrong end of his telescope. I suspect that my remarks will primarily be useful to directors of honors programs at community colleges or to fledgling directors or to directors of fledgling programs. And I won’t pretend that I expect them to be useful in and of themselves. I can only hope that they will spark a conversation that will help those of us who are finding our way to do so as successfully as Sederberg has.